TORCS
Posted by Shabadage Sat, 09 Dec 2006 10:24:00 GMT
I was recently asked by a friend over MSN if there were any good, free racing games avaliable for the PC. I was actually quite astounded that he didn’t know of TORCS, easily one of THE BEST freeware PC racers ever made. Considering I didn’t see it up here on TIGS, I figured I’d add it in. (We need a “racing” category Mr. Yu!)
I feel as though I should explain something first, as TORCS has a rather interesting history. TORCS was inspired by RARS (Robot Auto Racing Simulator), which was a racing game where you didn’t drive, you programmed an AI to drive the car for you. I remember having quite a bit of fun a few years ago playing around with some (Horrible) AI for this game. This, my friends, was pure geek fun.
TORCS is basically the next evolution of that idea, allowing the player to race against other AI bots. Currently, the game boasts 42 cars, roughly 50 different AI opponents, and around 30 tracks to race on. While the graphics are not spectacular (If you’re a GFX whore, there’s always ChaseHQ2Evo [run Eu3E}3?kOoAO.bat before you try to play the game!], which has 2 cars and 2 tracks), they certainly get the point across, and TORCS is constantly being updated (though sometimes it takes a little while). You can even write your own AI opponents if you get bored. (May your attempts go much better than mine.)
Even if you’re one of those people who doesn’t typically like racing games (like me!) you should at least TRY TORCS. I know it’s managed to find a permanent space on my hard drive.
great post! :)
how about free porn? ;)
Racer (racer.nl) is also pretty fun to play; unfortunately it uses a lot of CPU power on the Mac platform for no apparent reason.
It’s sort of like how racism gets you into trouble, but you can still be somewhat racist by giving someone bad service, etc.
One more vote for Racer.nl from me, too.
It’s buggy, but when it works it’s oh so sweet. Great community around the game as well, producing all sorts of vehicles from ‘69 Shelby 350 Mustangs to Citroen Xsara WRC rally cars. There’s also a great selection of tracks available too, plus full forcefeedback and (kind of) accurately modelled per-car torque dynamics.